During the banner years he wrested fiction out of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Wolfe and other men-with-typewriters, Perkins was rejecting (Gothic romance) manuscripts from Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, a fledgling writer in Cross Creek, Florida, wresting produce out of a struggling citrus grove to support her dreams.

Manuscripts (hers) & rejection letters (his) were accompanied by correspondence. Perkins remarked that her Yankee-transplant observations of colorful, impoverished neighbors created more interest than her novels & encouraged her to write what she knew~~the life she lived and the lives she observed.

The rest is history.

The #1 selling novel of 1938

The 1939 Pulitzer Prize

Despite being brand new, Scribner's launched The Yearling as one of their Illustrated Classics (☚click) & again commissioned N.C. Wyeth who traveled to Cross Creek to soak up the atmosphere.

Follow by Email

About Me

I write.
30 books have made it into print, beginning with my agent's simultaneous sale of my YA mystery SOMETHING OUT THERE and adult romance A TOUCH OF SCANDAL. I'm back in the fray with the eBook launch of THE CHICK PALACE.
I teach.
As adjunct faculty, I run critique workshops and mentor students in the MFA Writing Popular Fiction program of Seton Hill University. (The only genre fiction MFA in North America)
I consult.
On the side I critique & edit manuscripts for aspiring writers.
With a degree in art and an early background in advertising and fundraising copy & design, I've got other irons in the fire, too.